AI, teamed with physicians' intelligence, could improve care

Artificial intelligence (AI) is behind many of our daily interactions, from email communications to online purchases. AI is also shaping the ways that physicians and other health care professionals are making decisions and delivering care, according to expert panelists at the 2017 Health Datapalooza conference in Washington. The panelists presented a range of ways that AI--the use of computerized automation and neural network-based algorithms to accomplish tasks once performed by human beings--has already begun to affect health care. These include simple analytics and data interpretation as well as complex genomic sequencing and patient-care prioritization. "It's really about selecting narrower tasks that computers can do better than humans," said Christopher Khoury, vice president of the AMA's environmental intelligence and strategic analytics unit.